My solo show is tomorrow night. I'm nervous about it. I haven't performed it in over 5 years, and watching back over the recording I realised 3 things:

1. I used to speak really, really fast on stage. One might call it gabbling.2. I need to draw more on stage. (My notes say "Less talky, more scribbly")3. I have way more grey hair now than when I first did this show. I hope the material translates into 'old'.

If you're still umm-ing and aww-ing about coming, it's probably not for you. But if you want to come, I'd love you to grab a ticket below and come along tomorrow night to watch the show. It's a story I always get asked about and have trouble telling -for several reasons of which become apparent in the show.

Serendipitously enough, that same paper in Melbourne ran a feature on my doing Ginger Meggs today (Clipping generously sent by my Melbourne family. Thanks, Chris!). I'm not in love with the clickbaity headline, but I guess you can't write your own press. At least they used a good picture of me...

This coming Sunday the cartoonists are descending on Philly!! Read below for more...

The Nation’s Finest Cartoonists To Draw For The Public at the Philadelphia Free Library on May 27th, 2018

PHILADELPHIA – On Sunday, May 27, 2018, some 75 members of the National Cartoonist Society will come to Philadelphia’s Free Library in a unique free event where they will meet with, and draw for, the public. It will most likely be the largest concentration of cartoonists drawing free for the public anywhere in America this year.

Support for this event is being provided by the Free Library of Philadelphia and The Philadelphia Inquirer. It is tentatively scheduled to take place from 1-4 PM.

It’s all part of the National Cartoonist Society’s annual Reuben Awards Weekend taking place in Philadelphia May 25-27. The National Cartoonists Society is the world’s largest and most prestigious organization of professional cartoonists. It was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops. They found that they enjoyed each other’s company and decided to get to- gether on a regular basis. Today, the NCS membership roster includes over 500 of the world’s major cartoonists, working in many branches of the profession, including newspaper comic strips and pan- els, comic books, editorial cartoons, animation, gag cartoons, greeting cards, advertising, magazine and book illustration and more.The Reuben Awards have been called the “Oscars Of Cartooning” and this weekend will draw the best of the profession to Philadelphia.

At the event – to be held in the Main Lobby of the Free Library – cartoonists sit behind tables and fans can stroll up, talk to the creators and get a small cartoon, doodle or autograph from their favorite artists. There will be cartoonists from the newspaper comics section, from the graphic novel world, from the pages of the New Yorker, from MAD magazine, from popular animation studios, from the movie animation world, from web comics, from graphic novels, from children’s books and more.

You will also be able to buy books and materials directly from the creators and have them auto- graphed right in front of you. And people will be able to browse the Free Library’s impressive collec- tion of cartoon art and books as well.

Here is just a partial list of the cartoonists scheduled to appear with more being added weekly until the event:

TWO Australian comedians have drawn Donald Trump’s attention with a cheeky New Yorker cartoon.

A PAIR of Australian comedians have attracted Donald Trump’s attention with a cheeky political cartoon published in the New Yorker.

A pile of media clippings is delivered to Mr Trump every morning and afternoon, and on this occasion, their cartoon was near the top of the pile, the lobbyist told them after attending a White House meeting.

“He was like, ‘I really like this,’” Jason tells news.com.au. “I guess he just saw himself and he liked it.

The cartoon is not particularly flattering, showing Mr Trump watching the gun march on television and blaming video games — a parody of Republican remarks on deaths by firearms.

“It sucks because that’s the biggest insult a cartoonist can get,” says Jason, who spent ten years drawing for local and national papers in Australia. “You ask any political cartoonist, if the person you’ve drawn likes it, you’ve failed, dismally.”

The 34-year-old says he was much happier when Mr Trump blocked him on Twitter earlier in the presidency, after Jason asked the former reality star if he was drunk.

Scott, on the other hand, says he was “rapt” that the President liked their cartoon and told his mum.

The stand-up comics have had great success with their satirical New Yorker drawings, and have now started recording a podcast based on the cartoons. Their images have covered almost every Trump scandal, from the Stormy Daniels saga to the Syria missile strike.

While Mr Trump’s presidency has provided a rich stream of material for humour, they have also delved into topics including Kanye West’s outburst, the Met Gala, Mark Zuckerberg and bitcoin.

When the pictures are too edgy for the popular American magazine — one was a cartoon of a death-row inmate taking an Instagram photo of his last meal — they sell them to Australian publications including MAD magazine.

“Every Friday, we hear back from the [New Yorker] editor whether we got in or not,” Jason says. “I go in on a Tuesday morning and sit with the editor and she gives her feedback. There would be roughly 25 people who slip in throughout the morning and it goes on into afternoon.

“It’s the last open-call cartoon meeting in the world.

“It’s so competitive. They get thousands of entries each week. They choose about 16.”

The pair sold their first cartoon to the magazine around the year ago — a surreal joke about “Vlad the Employer”.

They also write and appear on stage and television — although Scott, 38, says one American told him “Aussies don’t talk like that” when he auditioned for an Australian character.

The twosome are now preparing to turn the podcast Is There Something In This? into a live show, sketching out audience suggestions in real time. “I’m just glad two white male comedians have finally made a podcast,” jokes Scott. “For so long it’s been crying out for that — it’s a hole in the market.”

He says he doesn’t have the answers to the political problems of our time. “If I did, I wouldn’t be here writing jokes.”

But he adds: “You don’t want to pick a side necessarily. I think finding the logic for it is more important than trying to have a really right-on moment.

“We’re in danger of just finding ourselves in heated agreement with people we like and then as a result, when you meet people you disagree with, it becomes a very combative exchange.

“I always feel like any political discussion, you’re only ever one move away from being called Hitler or a snowflake. I don’t think that’s a great way to end a conversation.

“It’s also interesting to see what people think is the big news story because on any given day now — I feel like I’m longing for a decade ago — but you’d go, that is today’s story. Whereas now at 9am, you’re going right, it’s one of the following three or four, and that’s if there’s not some terrible shooting.”

Jason begins his stand-up routine by telling the audience: “I’ve wanted to live in America my whole life. I feel like I’ve caught you at a weird time.”

He moved to New York several years ago when Barack Obama was President. “As soon as I started living here, it turned to this,” he says. “And so I’m very angry, I feel like I’ve been short-changed. I feel like finally I’m in this land of opportunity and it’s turned into Russia.

“Some of the crap he says is beyond parody, so it has become very difficult for us to find a gauge, to make something seem silly, because it already is silly.

“We’ll be like, what’s the Trump angle and how do we make this funny without just showing what happened? So what’s our take on it, so we’re trying to develop a unique voice in the process.

“I guess we’re outsiders looking in, in a way. We’re Aussies in America, so we do have a unique take on American politics.”

Today I spoke to Gen and Lewis on Triple J about the new pod, drawing Larry David and being a cartoonist in the Trump era. Click image above to listen to the interview.(Excerpted below)

___

Aussie New Yorker cartoonist Jason Chatfield on caricaturing Trump

Gen and Lewis were joined down the line by ‘Australia’s most widely syndicated cartoonist’, Jason Chatfield, only to be lightly roasted by the magic of cartoons.

Jason’s work has been seen in over 120 newspapers in over 30 countries around the world and you might have seen his work on Ginger Meggs, MAD Magazine and the New Yorker. He’s also recently started a podcast with triple j alum Scott Dooley where they workshop ideas for New Yorker. He joined us to talk through how he got here and one Trump doodle in particular.

One of Jason’s career highlights to date (/highlight of his life, in general) was when he was asked to draw Larry David for the wall of Sardi’s Restaurant (a New York institution). At the time he wrote: ‘I don’t know quite how to describe how much I revere Larry.’ It was a big moment. So, how did he get here? How did he go from Perth to caricaturing his “spirit animal” for the world’s most legendary wall of caricatures?

According to Jason, it was a relatively classic tale: he used to get in trouble doing it in school until someone paid him to draw a teacher and he was off. Also, says Jason, “It was really just the only employable skill I seemed to have — you know, makin’ jokes — so I pretty much just did it as a hobby until it became a job.”

He’d previously been working as a printer during the day and doing caricatures at night. “I was burning myself out, burning the candle at both ends, so I decided to ditch the full-time job when I was like 19 or 20.” So after transitioning into officially being a cartoonist, how did he start making money? “It isn’t easy, I’ll give it that,” says Jason. “You’ve kind of gotta be able to do everything. You’ve got to be able to do political cartoons, and comic strips, and caricatures, and illustrations, and animations, and everything so you become a bit of an all-rounder.”

But by working in America, Jason says, he’s been able to specialise “because there’s enough work to go around.” Having said that, Jason is currently writing for MAD, doing cartoons for the New Yorker, writing Ginger Meggs everyday, doing stand-up at night and podcasting with Dools, so his work is being spread far and wide.

‘Is There Something In This?’ began because they were already workshopping ideas for cartoons at the pub anyway. So at some point, Scott suggested it might make a good podcast. To which Jason replied: “Absolutely not. There’s no way that anyone wants to listen to us talk about a visual medium but we did it and I’m being proven an idiot every week because it’s become very popular over here.”

One of the cartoons they workshopped, which was eventually bought by the New Yorker, was of Trump around the time of the National School Walkout to protest gun violence. It got back to Jason, through a lobbyist friend who was in the White House on the day it came out, that Trump actually liked it. “It was the worst day of my life,” says Jason.

“The best thing for a cartoonist is if someone doesn’t like your cartoon if you drew them. If you do a political cartoon and the politician hates it, then you’ve really done your job.”

"Apparently he just didn't read the tag and he just saw his face and must have loved it. He blocked me on Twitter a while ago, though, so I haven't actually been able to read his tweets for a while. It's bliss."